Deadline Day Record Spend For January 2018

With the January transfer window slamming shut at 11pm last night, Premier League clubs spent a mouth watering £430million across the month.

Deloitte’s Sports Business Group crunched the numbers as deadline day and late deals ticked through and they state top flight clubs spent a record £150million on Wednesday to take spending for the month to £430million when everything was said and done.

The fact that some deals fell down, namely Manchester City’s attempt to get Riyad Mahrez from Leicester City for a reported price of £65million, the fact a single days business could’ve been over £200million just shows how stupid and out of touch the modern game is with real life and of course when transfers break down as fans of clubs effected we now have to suffer the modern trend of players being ‘disheartened’ or ‘depressed’ and throwing their proverbial toys out of the pram in the coming months as they seem to forget they kick around an updated pig’s bladder and already earn too much.

The headline transfer was of course Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who moved from Borussia Dortmund to Arsenal for a reported club record fee of £56million, but the most expensive transfer was on day 1 of January when Virgil van Dijk made the move from Southampton to Liverpool for a reported £75million.

Tottenham picked up Lucas Moura from Paris Saint-Germain in a deal said to be worth £23million and Oliver Giroud and Andre Ayew made £18million switches themselves from Arsenal to Chelsea and West Ham to Swansea respectively.

And Ayew’s final fee could rise to £20million as the Welsh club re-sign their former player.

At the time of writing there is the potential that some deals are yet to be announced during the two hour grace period if certain key paperwork has been completed to grant an extension, but the last January record set in 2011 was smashed by £205million in total and well it’s just mind boggling as I think these days even I might have been worth £500,000 given the artificially inflated fees in operation and I only had one useable foot on a pitch.

Badou Ndiaye move from Galatasaray to Stoke City for £14million ensured the money was further spread around Europe and evening Preston North End pocketed a reported £10million from West Ham for Jordan Hugill.

Nothing against any of the named players but….really, at those figures? This isn’t the game I fell in love with although some would argue I can tell who provided my missus with the inspiration for her spending!

With Alexis Sanchez going from Arsenal to Manchester United and Henrikh Mkhitaryan going in the opposite direction, the purists might argue the sums are inflated as Leicester City’s deal with Sporting Lisbon for Adrien Silva didn’t go through until this month owing to FIFA’s stupidity in August and their deal with Sporting Lisbon that saw him waste half a season of his career owing to paperwork (that Leicester believe they proved went through in time).

Even Everton spent big again, signing Cenk Tosun and Theo Walcott for a combined £47million. Again as above, potentially the sums could’ve been higher had Manchester City spent on Mahrez and Sanchez, but they themselves completed the £57million signing of Aymeric Laporte to register their own record.

Deloitte’s number crunching shows that spending for 2017/18, having already broke the billion mark now sits at £1.9billion but they do point out the spending is within reach given the revenue clubs receive.

‘While another record-breaking season catches the eye, Premier League clubs’ expenditure continues to be well within their means in the context of revenue generated. Estimated 2017-18 net spend of £755m represents just 17% of forecast 2017-18 Premier League revenue, in line with the average over the 15 years since the first transfer window in January 2003, as clubs increase investment in players in proportion to the overall growth of the football business.’

In terms of the top six spending, Deloitte also point out this January it was a spend of £265million compared to just £40,000 in January 2017.

Football’s supposed to be a funny old game, not a ridiculously stupid one.